Oct. 4, 2013

'Sun Target' is an abstract sculpture outside the Springfield Art Museum that many compare to french fries. / Submitted photo

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Springfield's 'Sun Target' sculpture by John Henry is an easy landmark for visitors looking for the Springfield Art Museum. / News-Leader file photo

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Have photos of Springfield’s “Sun Target,” aka the french fries? Share them through the Springfield Revealed home page (click the “submit your idea” button), and we’ll add them to our online photo gallery.

'Sun Target' is installed near the Springfield Art Museum in 1980.

Burnt fries? The 'Sun Target' sculpture was wrapped in black plastic for 'A Day Without Art,' an event that took place in April 2007. / News-Leader file photo

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Telling someone to “turn west at the ‘Sun Target’ ” might earn some strange looks. But tell a local to “turn left at the big french fries,” and odds are they’ll find the Springfield Art Museum without much trouble.

The jumble of massive, yellow beams has been sitting at the corner of National Avenue and Bennett Street for more than three decades. Officially titled “Sun Target,” the abstract sculpture is the work of American artist John Henry, known for his work in painted Cor-Ten steel.

“It’s kind of turned into a landmark ... the ‘french fries’ name is kind of ingrained,” said Nick Nelson, the art museum’s director. “If it’s meaningful for people in that way, we’ll roll with it.... It’s not about a right or wrong answer, it’s about enjoying an object for what it is.”

Created in 1974, the carefully arranged collection of of yellow-painted beams was installed on the east end of the Art Museum’s grounds in 1980. The Missouri Arts Council and the Ola E. McAdoo bequest helped pay for the sculpture, which is one of several similar pieces Henry created.

An apparently identical sculpture, sometimes referred to as “Sun Target No. 1,” is on display at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A smaller version, also called “Sun Target,” is on the campus of the University of Central Florida.

And another John Henry sculpture made of radiating, yellow-painted beams, called “Alachua,” is installed at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Judging from articles available online, the connection to french fries has been made with those sculptures, as well.

Henry was aware of, and amused by, the comparisons, according to materials prepared for an exhibit of his work in Springfield in 1977. And while they hope residents will take the time to learn a little about the sculpture’s history, Nelson and his staff are happy the piece has found a place in Springfield’s identity.

“You’ll be giving someone directions (to the museum) and people say, ‘Oh, the french fries by the Mexican Villa,” said Sarah Buhr, the museum’s curator of art. “We embrace that. It’s fantastic that people have given it its own name.”

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“It becomes more than what it was created to be,” added Nelson.

Unlike a portrait or a landscape, abstract art like “Sun Target” is “not really meant to be representational at all,” he said. “There’s what the artist intended, and there’s what the work means to you.”

Rather than telling a story, “it’s more about your encounter with the object,” Nelson said. “Works like this are about form and space ... and your scale in comparison to it.”

Time has taken a toll on the sculpture, with the sun bleaching the glossy yellow paint to the pale shade of sweet corn. Nelson hopes to have it refinished in the future, but it’s not as simple as slapping on a fresh coat of paint.

“It was repainted once in the early ’90s and it was quite the process,” Buhr said. “John Henry is still alive, so they had to call him to see if it was the right color, the right type of paint ... you couldn’t just spray-paint it and have the same kind of effect.”

Watch the video for local reaction to Springfield’s well-known sculpture.